Contempt

<i>Contempt</i> is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous&#151;his cool clarity of expression his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension his still-striking openness about sex&#151;are evident in this story of a failing marriage. <i>Contempt</i> (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard's no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.